Their Paradise
by Kat Lee formerly Pirate Turner
Summary: "Say the word," Clark told his beloved Lex, "and I'll hang up the cape forever."  Future AU.  Slashy Clex Goodness!


Title: "Their Paradise"  
>Author: Pirate Turner<br>Dedicated To: My beloved, amazing, wonderful, and always inspirational husband, Jack, for whom I would give anything just as Clark will for Lex  
>Rating: PG<br>Summary: "Say the word," Clark told his beloved Lex, "and I'll hang up the cape forever."  
>Warnings: Slash, Established Relationship, AU, Future Fic<br>Word Count: 2,817  
>Date Written: 13 May, 2011<br>Challenge/Prompt: For the Clexmas LJ comm's 2011 Bingo  
>Disclaimer: Clark, Jonathan, and Martha Kent, Lex Luthor, all other characters mentioned within, and Smallville are ﾩ &amp; TM DC comics and any other rightful owners, none of whom are the author; are used without permission; and may not be used without permission. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.<p>

They strolled along the beach he had bought just for them, walking hand in hand over the sandy shore as they were meant to be in life. Lex sighed, his puff of breath intermingling with the love he felt for the amazing man who filled his world, life, heart, and soul like no one else ever could and sorrow over the fact that he knew that this, too, would end. It would happen one day soon, and no matter when it happened, a day or a millennia from now, it would still happen far too soon for Lex. He loved Clark with all his being and wanted only to be with him for the rest of his days, but the world owned a piece of his love that they both knew Clark would never deny.

"Lex," Clark spoke, turning his gaze from the pinks and golds that filled the sky for endless miles before them and danced on the crystal blue waters surrounding their island home. He pouted at his soul mate, knowing that Lex had always found his "puppy dog" look both adorable and completely irresistible. "You promised you wouldn't think about them."

Lex blinked. Feigning innocence, he asked simply, "Who?"

"You know who," Clark said, smiling gently with understanding. They frustrated him to no end, and he'd lost track years ago of the many, countless times he'd thought seriously of hanging up his red cape and giant S all in the name of love. Yet, after their last fight that had almost cost the world all the lives she held, they had finally made up and made a vow to each other that they would never again let any one or thing come between them. They loved each other with all their hearts, minds, and souls, with every single fiber of their beings, and they would never let anything else part them or keep them from acting on that love again, no matter what.

They would be together, they had vowed, and their impromptu wedding, of which both had dreamed for years since gay marriage had first began to be publicly accepted, had been a whirlwind affair that had landed them out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on this tropical island that Lex had bought through a single phone call, sight unseen. No one with even half a brain dared to cross Lex Luthor, and the island had indeed proven to be everything the real estate agent had told them and then some. The ocean and land were both spectacular, but what was infinitely better by far was being alone with just each other and having not another living thing walking on two legs to bother them for thousands of miles.

"People," Clark verified, taking Lex's handsome, worried face inside his loving hands. "We'll have to think about them soon enough, sweetheart, but for now, it's just the two of us." He smiled up at him, his blue eyes twinkling with the perfected happiness he hadn't felt since he'd been a boy stealing minutes away from the outside world to share with the hated Luthor he had loved even then far more than anybody else, including his parents. They had had such wonderful dreams then of stealing each other away from the rest of the world and living out their days in the paradise of one another's loving arms. It had taken them years to make it happen, but finally, at long, long last, they were here, doing just that in paradise.

"I know," Lex spoke softly. "I just wish it could last this way forever."

He wanted to ask him why it could not, but he knew the reasons all too well. Instead he stepped up to him, closing out the little distance that had remained between them, and took him in his arms. Lex sighed happily and wistfully and closed his eyes in sweet relish as Clark embraced him.

He wished with all his heart that they could stay this way forever, but he knew that it could never happen and feared that they were asking more than they would ever be given by determining to stay together. The world was an incredibly vile, wicked, and selfish place that tore apart every truly good thing in it, and the remarkable, wondrous love he and his sweet and amazing Clark shared was the best thing not only to ever touch him but to ever even exist in all of eternity. The world already hated him and loved Clark, and when they learned of their love, Lex feared, as wonderful as it was, they'd stop at nothing until they'd torn them asunder.

Clark ran his hands, roughened by work and the years gently and soothingly over his beloved Lex's body. He felt his slight tremblings which Lex would never admit and Clark would never call him on, and his heart ached for the man he loved. Lex had known many horrors over his lifetime, and Clark could have protected him from many of them if he'd only stayed with him where he belonged. "Say the word," he said, "and I'll hang up the cape forever."

He felt his beloved Lex still in surprise in the safe cocoon of his warm hands and loving arms. "I mean it," Clark breathed, and indeed he did. He'd only ever meant two things more in his whole life, and his wonderful Lex was the receiver of both of those things as well. He loved Lex, and he was determined to stay with him for now, forever, and beyond. If it took him hanging up his cape and letting the world go, Clark would gladly make those sacrifices. He loved Lex with everything that he was, and without Lex, he was far from being a Superman. He was lost, heart-broken, aching, and incomplete, and only his beloved Lex could ever complete him.

They were meant to be together, and Clark would gladly do anything, make any sacrifice, and go anywhere to stay right where he belonged - with the man he loved more than life itself. "Just say it," he repeated, pulling back and gazing solemnly into his love's sweet, enchanting eyes so that he could see he truly and completely meant every word he said. "Say the words, my love, and the world will never see Superman again. I promise you, Lex. I love you, and being with you is all I ever want. I'll do whatever it takes to keep us together."

"I love you!" he repeated for though he'd already said the words, they were three, little words he never tired of saying. Rather he said them a hundred or a million times, he could still shout them out a trillion million more times from the top of the tallest building in all the world for so overflowed the love he felt and would always feel for his wonderful, miraculous man alone!

Lex stared at Clark in amazement, his heart soaring for he could tell his love truly meant the words he spoke. "You . . . " His eyelashes fluttered as he battled down the tears of joy that surged into his blue eyes, filling his wide orbs and nearly spilling over from them. "You would do that for me?" he asked, his voice a choked whisper strangled by the enormosity of the warm, elated, and over joyful feelings coursing throughout every inch of his soul.

Before his love, warmth and love had been but fond memories to Lex. He'd known them only in his mother's touch and had come to believe that he would never know them again. He was cold, inside and out, his heart and soul as black as the designer shoes that normally clothed his feet, as black as the soul that the whole world said all the Luthors, including himself, possessed. He had had no light, no warmth, no love, nor reason to try to struggle to overcome what the world thought of him and his family, and yet he had been trying to do so, trying and failing for he had been but a mere shell of a man, his heart and soul not yet alive.

Then Clark had blazed into his life. He had filled his world with vibrant color, made his heart soar, and poured his pure, glowing warmth of love into Lex's soul, filling the aching gap in his being at long last and saving his heart, life, and soul. His beloved Clark had saved him, and he hadn't stopped there. He had saved Lex's whole world. For years, he'd tried to save him, help him to become a better person, to raise above the hate and evilness that were his family legacy, and yet life and the humans around them had pushed them apart.

And Lex, like the idiot he could be sometimes, had let them. He should have gone to his beloved Clark years ago; ceased the lying, deceitful role into which he had so foolishly allowed himself to be thrust; and professed his undying love to him many years ago, but he hadn't. He'd let them drift apart. He'd allowed his beloved Clark to think the worst of him, and yet his love had never stopped loving him.

And never would, just as Lex would never stop loving him. He loved Clark with his every breath, every fiber of his heart and soul, and he always would no matter what. At one time, he'd tried to stop loving him. He'd told himself that their love, as wondrous as it had always been, was a lost cause, that he himself was a lost cause, and his world had fallen black again. Yet, no matter what he had done or forced his love to do to him, he had never once stopped loving him nor had Clark ever stopped loving him!

The world couldn't change that, he thought, but the world could change. He'd seen it too many times, had been the butt of the world's jokes far too oft. Pulling away from his own world, his Clark, and the happy life they had shared had caused Lex to go to one of the darkest places in his soul, but Clark had found him there and pulled him out of it at long last.

"Lex?" Clark said, still cupping his love's handsome face in his sweetly caressing hands. "It's okay, sweetheart," he assured, wrapping Lex in a tight, protective hug. "You don't have to answer me now. Just think about it." He pulled him close against him, and Lex went gladly, wrapping his arms, too, around Clark.

His chin rested on his muscular shoulder as memories floated through his mind. The world had forced them apart, and yet here they were, together again at long last, both willing to do anything to be together. The sunset sparkled beyond Lex's glittering blue eyes. The world had forced them apart, but they'd let themselves be driven into a dark place.

Now their world was filled with color as the golden, pink, and purple hues of the setting sun shot all around them. It need never be dark again, and they had everything here they could ever want with one another. He could keep it that way forever with but one word. He could steal his beloved Clark away from the world and have him all to himself forever more.

But that was the same world that his love had dedicated his whole life to protect, that Lex himself had once dedicated endless funds and countless hours of work to try to save. They had never been thankful, and he knew they would never be thankful to him. Yet they loved his Superman, and Clark loved them. He'd seen the turmoil break open in his love's innocent, blue eyes and handsome face every time he'd threatened to destroy it while they had been fighting.

As much as he wanted to think otherwise, Lex knew that Clark didn't just get up out of his bed in the morning to be with him. That, to his sweet, beloved, and wonderful Clark, was just the greatest bonus ever. No, he didn't get up out of bed for him. He got up to save the world from certain doom again, and Lex had witnessed the joy that brought him time and again.

Lex would never keep his love from something that brought him joy; he wanted him to be happy more than anything else which was another reason why he had pulled away from him when they had been younger. The world hated him, but saving that same world made his love happy. That was his love's destiny, and Clark was Lex's destiny.

"No," Lex answered at last. "I would never ask that of you." He pulled back, smiling as he gazed up into his love's questioning, baby blue eyes.

Clark looked at him in obvious surprise. "You don't - " he started to say, but Lex silenced him with a finger pressing softly to his supple, pink lips. Then he replaced his finger with his own lips and kissed him long and deep with all the heated, incredible passion and ultimate, grand love he'd always feel for him alone before slowly turning him around to face the sunset.

"Look out there, Clark," he whispered into his love's ear, his arms wrapped around him from behind. "See the way the setting sun stretches out before the water and the water seems almost to touch it though we know it to be impossible?" Clark nodded as he puzzled over where Lex was going with this. "The pink and purple clouds wrap around the setting sun and will rise again when it lifts once more on the other side of the world."

"You are my sun, Clark; I wrap around you like the clouds." He squeezed him gently and pressed a kiss to the side of his tanned neck. "You light my life. You guide me and complete me. Where you go, I will always follow."

"The world is the ocean. It's all around and beneath us, trying to reach us, but yet it never will. It could not exist without you, and you take such joy in warming it, in saving it. Yet, no matter what you do for it, or it tries to do to you, I will always love you and be right here beside you!"

He grinned as he side-stepped to gaze into his love's beautiful, twinkling baby blues. "Or at least I will always do all I can to be right beside you, my love, my Superman. Being Superman's important to you. It fills you like you fill me. I would never ask you to give that up, because I know how important it is to you and you'll never be whole without allowing that part of you to live to its utmost."

"I love you, Clark, and I'm not going to ever ask you to give up what makes you happy and whole! What I do ask is that you keep your promise to me - that you never let them come between us -, and I know you will because you never break a promise." His grin grew to fill his entire handsome face that glowed with the wondrous, golden love that glowed throughout every inch of his heart and soul. "And I ask that on the occasion that they do become too much, we will run away together to this very island, our own special paradise . . . "

Lex's gallant words of love made Clark feel like whooping for joy, something he'd not done since they had been young together. Instead he grabbed, squeezed, lifted, and spun him around with the boyish enthusiasm Lex had missed so much. He shouted, "I LOVE YOU, LEX!", loud enough for the whole island to hear him, if indeed there had been any other inhabitants, and flew with him up into the sky.

There, in those very same golden rays to which his beloved had compared his light and warmth so eloquently and the fluffy pink and purple clouds that were to be his love, Clark reveled in his true paradise as he made sweet love to his own personal hero, the man who had saved him and helped him to become the hero he was. There and then, and for every moment of every day and night for the rest of their lives together, Clark told and showed Lex just how much he would always love him alone, and Lex awarded his every pledge with his own created with his own special style of Clark-inspired love and eloquence. They filled one another forever more, and they spent the rest of eternity together, relishing their own special paradise of love, every moment Clark wasn't fighting to save the world, right there in each other's loving arms forever more!

**The End**


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